Shifting Gears 2: Revealings
by Icee The Hedgehog
Summary: Sequel to Shifting Gears. Metal Sonic is now living peacefully with Metal Shadow, Mephiles and Shadow. Everything was going great until Metal started snapping at people for unexplained reasons. Mephiles insists it's just rust, but Metal Shadow thinks there's more to the situation than they know. Can they do something to figure out what's wrong before it's too late?


_**Hello all, and welcome to a new story!**_

_**As promised, this is the sequel to my other story, Shifting Gears. It's highly recommended for the best story understanding, that you read that one before this one. Otherwise some things are not going to make any sense.**_

_**WARNING: This story contains minor MEPHADOW. If you do not like the pairing, please feel free to skip the Mephadow tidbits/chapters. (if there is a chapter about them I will include the warning at the top in bold, just like this note!)**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story! They all belong to SEGA! (Metal Shadow may be considered an OC/fan character, though, but he's mostly just a Shadow Android)**_

_**Anyway, enough blabbing. Enjoy the story and read and review with your CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM!**_

* * *

**Prologue**

_**(Metal Sonic's POV)**_

"Alright, let's see." Mephiles says, checking the ingredients for his latest recipe. A chicken, a pack of flour, a dozen eggs and a bag of sunflower seeds sit on the counter. Apparently this is all that is in the house right now, and he has to make something out of it for supper since Shadow would be out on a G.U.N. mission all day. "Chicken, flower, egg, seed…" (Why he said "flower" instead of "_flour" who_ really knows)

He shoves the ingredients around, then pours a bunch of water in a bowl, and dumps the bag of sunflower seeds into the bowl and puts it on the stove on high power. At that same moment, the entire bag of flour falls on the black carpet, making a huge mess of flour on the ground, and on Mephiles. That was the moment that I just had to walk in, when the entire bag of flour is falling, creating a huge puff of flour.

"What in the name of Chaos is going on in here?!" I snap as the puff flies up and dissipates, revealing Mephiles, who is trying to boil a bag of sunflower seeds (not seeds fresh from the flower, more like the ones in the bags of sunflower seeds found at the Mobius Market convenience store just around the corner). The bag of flour sits on its side, open.

"Well, Shadow is going to be out all day and we don't have a lot of food so I decided to make something out of what we have in the house—

Just then, an egg falls out of the package and onto the floor. It busts of course, leaving a mess of uncooked yolk and white. Mephiles seems not to notice, and is almost stepping in it.

"Mephiles, why do you even bother working in the kitchen?" I ask, looking down at the mess and crossing my arms. "Every time you have tried to surprise Shadow with dinner, it fails horribly and makes a huge mess that _I _have to clean up! I'm just glad I don't have to consume your meals. They are all utter and complete failures!"

"And you can't even put a marshmallow in the microwave without it busting while it's still cooking!" Mephiles shoots back. "At least I am capable of making a meal!"

"A lousy meal if you ask me!" I shout back. "I've seen your thing that you called spaghetti, and to be honest it looked like dead grass with poop on it!"

"Yet Shadow still said he liked it." Mephiles snaps back, becoming angry.

"Then explain to me why he always tells us he needs to use the bathroom at dinner every night and when someone excuses him he goes running to the bathroom!" I shout back. "In addition to that, your cooking makes a huge mess! By the way, that syrup that you squeezed so hard it hit the ceiling could not be scrubbed off, so there it sits, just to let you know."

I point up to the ceiling, where syrup from this morning's pancake attempt sits on the ceiling, dried up.

"At least I bother to make a meal." Mephiles growls at me, gritting his teeth. It's obvious that my remarks are making him angry, and I couldn't care less. "You're just on your lazy butt in your bed most of the time, leaving the rest of us to work!"

"Not my fault I am tired a lot more often!" I snap. "I told you the other day, something's wrong with me and I didn't know what!"

Just as Mephiles is opening his mouth to say something, Metal Shadow comes in, just as I am about to throw an egg at Mephiles' head.

"Okay what are we arguing about now?" Metal Shadow asks, his robotic voice sounding annoyed.

"He started the argument by saying that my cooking stinks and I shouldn't be working in the kitchen because my meals are all complete failures!" Mephiles immediately goes on the defensive.

"It's true facts though!" I shoot back. "That spaghetti did look like dead grass with poop on it, and you always make a huge mess every time you try to cook something. You truly should not be working in the kitchen for the safety of everyone around you!"

"And I don't see you trying to make the mea—

"Both of you be quiet or I will call Shadow home from work!" Metal Shadow yells. "And I am sure he will not be very pleased to have to come home because we can't be decent for eight hours!"

I remember the last time that Shadow had to come home from a G.U.N. mission because of an argument just like this one. He went running in, dressed in his G.U.N. uniform, not pleased because he had just found something valuable in his mission that had to be paused because of our behavior, and warned us that if he had to be called home again, our punishments would be worse. He punished us both, me more so because he had a thing for Mephiles, and still does. Apparently, they'd mended their loose ends a year back and now absolutely love each other, complete with Mephiles calling Shadow "Shadow-Kun" and Shadow calling Mephiles "Mephi-Sama". The names stuck to them, whether anybody else liked them or not. Still, love or no love, I don't think it's fair that he didn't give us both equal punishment.

Both of us remain silent, the arguing done. I suddenly get another one of those stupid tired bursts and my eyes get dim, even though I'd just gotten up from a forty-five minute nap.

"I'm going back to bed." I say, my voice sounding irritated. I am a little bit, but it's mostly because I am tired of being tired all of the time.

The tiredness used to be only a minor problem, with me having to take a nap once a day because I would get so tired I could barely stand. However, it's worse now with me having to stop once every hour or two to nap and if I don't get that opportunity to nap, I end up passing out. I've already passed out twice due to not being able to nap, and Metal Shadow just tells me if I begin to get tired to just take a nap so this doesn't keep happening. He told me I must have some sort of computer virus, and it should go away within a few days. However, that was about a month ago, and it's just worsened. Metal Shadow is not sure what's wrong with me and Mephiles, as far as I know, hasn't been worried about it.

"Alright, Metal I hope you feel better soon." Metal Shadow says, his voice sounding concerned as I walk towards my bedroom.

Once in bed, I lay down and immediately go into sleep mode. I am assuming that later, someone will take me back to my recharging chambers.

_**Meanwhile…**_

_**(Third Person POV)**_

Metal Shadow cleans up the mess of flour as Mephiles proceeds on with his recipe.

"Mephiles, I'm starting to get very concerned about Metal's condition." Metal Shadow says, rubbing the flour in so that it disappears from the carpet. "He's been this way ever since last month when he lost some of his speed and ability to fly, and now all he wants to do is sleep. I'm hoping it's not what I think it is, but the symptoms seem to match up pretty well."

"I doubt it's what you're thinking; he would have shown the symptoms a long time ago." Mephiles says, turning off the sunflower seeds, which are boiled up and not looking nice. Nonetheless, he mixes them with the flour and dips the chicken, which is cut into strips into it and then puts them into the fryer. "That, and his powers would have disabled a long time ago. He probably just has serious internal injuries from being in a coma for two years."

"I doubt that." Metal Shadow says. "I was in one as well, and I'm not damaged at all."

"Maybe he is." Mephiles says. "After all, he was in that bush for so long, exposed to the elements. I had to clean out all of that rust. Maybe there's some I missed."

"I doubt rust is the sole thing to blame for all of these things." Metal Shadow says, dangling his feet as he sits on the chair, hands in his lap and head down. "Rust wouldn't affect all of these areas."

"It does if it flakes off." Mephiles says. "I'll check him out when I get dinner on the table, just to show you that nothing is wrong with him and we can fix the problem."

Metal Shadow doesn't say anything, but he nods, looking at his hands. He still isn't believing that rust is the sole thing to blame for Metal Sonic's condition. There's just too much to it for it to be just rust. He gets up and leaves the room, fearing the worst, and awaits for Mephiles to finish cooking the food up so they can figure out what's happening once and for all.


End file.
